Please note: This website chronicles the CNEs first 100 years and a bit ... but our history continues to evolve, and this website will continue to be expanded and embellished over time, as more decades & images are added! Keep checking back!

Please note: This website chronicles the CNEs first 100 years and a bit ... but our history continues to evolve, and this website will continue to be expanded and embellished over time, as more decades & images are added! Keep checking back!

1880s

1885 Prize List Front Cover

This colour lithograph showed the illumination of the Exhibition provided by the lighting tower.

Outdoor lighting was a feature of the early exhibitions. As announced in the 1883 Prize List: "The grounds and buildings will be illuminated each evening with Electric Lights of all kinds invented up to the present time; and the Consumers' Gas Company, of Toronto, announce that they will make an exhibit of gas lights announce that they will make an exhibit of gas lights that will eclipse the electric lights."

Public admission to the grounds in 1885 was 25 cents. People had to walk through turnstiles to get in and, warned the prize list sternly in bold type. "Each person must be provided the proper change before entering."